Last weekend was more nostalgic than most, as I spent a significant amount of time at my computer looking at old backups, from 1999-2004. Recording my dreams were one of the reasons I first started keeping a journal (way back in elementary school). While I imagine that the content of my dreams themselves are important,[1], it is becoming increasingly clear that the recording of them is possibly more important.
Included among my set of backups were electronic communications from freshman year. If you asked me my opinion of the person whom I was communicating with, I would previously have replied that they were a good friend, based on my memories of freshman year. However, after re-reading our conversations, I am not so sure. While I can clearly remember good times, the written records suggests that I was far more optimistic than I should have been.
Similarly, when I look back on my dreams of last weekend, I do not think the content is the most important part. In one dream I had Sunday night, I was reading an illustrated book about an Arthurian knight whose spirit went insane while trapped inside a tree. While his imprisonment was supposed to end at the time of England's greatest need, his release would probably not help the country, as he had lost all faculties of reason.
The story is a pastiche of various piece of Arthurian legends (i.e. Merlin's imprisonment by Nimue, Arthur's rest at Avalon), the wood creatures of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, and the last part of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. More interesting is the fact that several aspects of the dream are similar to the content of the Wikipedia article on Myrddin Wyllt. I know I have previously seen that article, but I suspect that my only viewing of it was a cursory skimming back around Christmas. Since then, I thought I had put it out of my mind - except that obviously, it was not.
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[1]As if my dreams were my subconscious drawing what it sees of my waking life through the use of a black mirror.